Chapter 88: _ Combat Class

Panic flared in my chest. I had no team, no dragon, and no tier!

The courtyard erupted into chaos. Initiates scrambled everywhere, shouting, bargaining, and shoving past one another to secure strong squad captains before the draft closed.

Bren marched straight over to the third-tier line and grabbed a tall, gloomy-looking boy.

"You," Bren said, pointing a finger at his chest. "Name and power?"

"Damon," the boy mumbled, staring at the ground. "Earth manipulation. I can only shift small stone slabs for now."

"Good enough. You’re with me," Bren declared. Then, without even glancing at the rest of the crowd, she turned around, grabbed Miriel by her collar, and dragged her straight into the circle to fill their fourth-tier slot. "And you’re our third."

Miriel gasped, clutching her satchel against her ribs like a shield. "Me?! Bren, I haven’t even awakened my secondary power yet! You’re going to lose!"

"You’re fast on your feet and you scream loud. That makes you great bait. Now shut up and get ready," Bren reasoned cheerfully.

Before I could voice my rising panic over being stranded without a squad, Master Eldritch reached behind the weapon rack on the dais and pulled out a mechanical device shaped like a compact crossbow with glowing blue runic clamps attached to the front.

He handed it straight to me.

"Without an aura, you cannot catch a Mimic-Spark with bare hands, girl," Eldritch muttered quietly so only I could hear over the din. "The rules of the Gauntlet permit captains to manipulate the course and sabotage rival squads. As Field Arbiter, you operate the master snare. You have three shots. You can shoot a snare to rescue a struggling student... or use the launcher to freeze or redirect a spark for a team of your choosing."

My fingers closed tightly around the handle, and my panic instantly dissolved into a wicked grin. The Master wasn’t just going to make me a useless observer after all. I had been handed control over the course mechanics. I got to sit up on the dais and play god over the very people who laughed at me?

Bring it on.

"Thank you, Master," I purred, thumbing the mechanical latch.

"Don’t thank me yet. THE GAUNTLET BEGINS NOW!" Eldritch roared, slamming his iron rod down onto the dais flagstones.

BOOM!

The arena erupted into beautiful dragon madness.

With two dozen full squads diving into the course at once, the terrace turned into a war zone of juvenile dragon instincts. Although none of these first-years could fully shift yet, their blood hummed under the pressure of competition:

Smoke curled from nostrils across the field. In Squad Five, a burly second-tier captain let out a roar, crimson scales erupting across his cheeks and neck as his pupils slit into golden reptilian lines, exhaling a short burst of orange dragon-fire that scorched a swinging wooden beam clean out of his path.

In Squad Eight, a third-tier girl sprouted razor-sharp claws from her fingertips, digging into the marble pillar as she leaped twenty feet across a sinking water pit.

Bren immediately activated her secondary power.

POP! POP!

Two identical copies of Bren materialized out of thin air beside her. Redmere dragon-fire crackled around the knuckles of all three Brens as their teeth elongated into sharp points.

"Bren One, hold the swinging pendulum! Bren Two, block Squad Six! Bren Original, going for the spark!" Bren barked to herself, diving over a sinking tile.

Down in the central lane, Elsie was using her hair manipulation alongside her squad captain, Ryder. Ryder’s eyes glowed icy blue, frost scaling up his arms as he froze the cobblestones under competing teams to send them tumbling. Elsie’s long hair extended like prehensile tentacles, whipping through the air toward a darting Mimic-Spark.

"I have it! I have the spark!" Elsie shrieked triumphantly, her hair coiling tightly around the crackling orb.

"Oh, no you don’t," I muttered from the dais, raising the snare.

Exploiting the Arbiter rules, I didn’t shoot at the spark itself. Instead, I aimed the runic bolt at the hydraulic latch directly beneath Elsie’s feet.

PULL!

The runic bolt struck the stone joint with a sharp hiss. The floor tile beneath Elsie abruptly dropped four feet into a shallow pit of muddy drainage water.

"AAAGH!" she shrieked as her legs gave out. Her hair flailed uselessly in the air, releasing the spark before she fell face-first into the mud with a wet SPLAT!

"Aha!" I jumped in satisfaction, pumping my fist.

The entire terrace roared with laughter as Elsie hauled herself out of the mud pit, her hair completely caked in slime-green algae. She glared up at the dais when she caught me holding the launcher with a sweet, innocent wave.

Across the arena, two other squads collided. A second-tier dragon in Squad Nine unleashed a jet of dragon-flame from his mouth to incinerate a net thrown by Squad Three, while a fourth-tier boy used his stone skin to tank an electric blast from a wild spark.

"Miriel, now!" Bren shouted, her two duplicates pinning a crackling spark against a stone pillar while smoke hissed from her nose.

Miriel scrambled up a tilting wooden ramp like a terrified squirrel, caught the spark in her hands, and sprinted closer to Damon who was by the central vault, screaming at the top of her lungs the entire way. She threw the spark at the boy who slammed it inside just as the green vault light flared.

"Point to Squad Two!" Eldritch shouted over the din.

The competition had turned into full blown sprints as the last five surviving squads fought for victory.

The first squad to secure three deposited sparks would claim ultimate victory and thirty marks, while the second team to complete their tally would take second place for twenty marks.

While Elsie was busy trying to wring algae out of her hair and cursing my bloodline, Squad Two pushed hard for their remaining quota. But a strikingly handsome second-tier initiate named Valen, the captain of Squad One, was moving through the obstacle course like a darn ghost.

My jaw dropped in awe as I watched him.

Silver dragon scales shimmered along Valen’s jawline. Using his wind manipulation, Valen swept up two sparks back-to-back, effortlessly depositing them into the vault just as his teammates secured their third—snatching first place a mere second before Bren’s squad could deposit theirs.

BZZZZT!

The vault chimed three times, signaling the end of the test.

"EXERCISE COMPLETE!" Master Eldritch roared, slamming his iron rod down.

The moving platforms ground to a halt. Over ninety panting, scorched, mud-stained, and half-electrified initiates collapsed onto the flagstones. Smoke rose in thin wisps from scorched tunics across the courtyard.

"First place and thirty merit marks to Squad One, led by Initiate Valen!" Eldritch announced.

Valen offered a charming smile, running a hand through his hair as his dragon scales receded into his skin.

"Second place and twenty merit marks to Squad Two, led by Initiate Bren!" Eldritch added.

Miriel threw her hands up, letting out a victorious shriek before collapsing flat on her back near the fountain. Bren’s two duplicates dissolved into fine mist, leaving the original Bren standing tall, wiping sweat and ash from her forehead with a triumphant smirk while she patted Damon, their third partner, on the back.

"Third place and ten merit marks go to Squad Four, led by initiate Anastasia!"

A fourth-tier girl who was the captain of Heidi’s group jumped while her two squad members threw themselves at her, screaming with victory.

I rolled my eyes at the fact that one of those pompous girls had been among the winners. If only I wasn’t too fixated on Elsie and my friends, I might have taught those brats, Caelia and Heidi some lessons too.

"Not bad, initiate No-One," Master Eldritch murmured beside me, taking the snare back from my hands. "You have sharp eyes and steady hands. Don’t ever let these high-borns tell you that lack of a beast makes you weak. After all, who knows what you might be hiding in that empty chest of yours."

"Thank you, Master," I breathed, my chest heaving with lingering adrenaline.

"Dismissed! Clean yourselves up for afternoon lectures!"

I hurried down the steps, meeting Bren and Miriel near the fountain.

"You were incredible!" Miriel gushed, lunging forward to hug me. "Watching Elsie face-plant into the algae while covered in dragon-smoke was the single greatest moment of my entire life!"

"Nice shot, glitch. Twenty marks on day one. Not bad at all," Bren chuckled, her fangs retracting as she patted my shoulder.

"I aim to please," I grinned, feeling a warm rush of genuine happiness.

Perhaps the Academy and everything I’d endured here had made me overly suspicious of kindness. Something told me that when someone looked out for you in Last Bastion, it usually came at a cost.

So, Master Eldritch, what was yours?

I turned toward the professor and froze when I saw him gesturing directly to me.

"Come, Initiate No-One. We leave together."